Immunoinformatic Analysis of Calcium-Dependent Protein Kinase 7 (CDPK7) Showed Potential Targets for Toxoplasma gondii Vaccine.

Ali Taghipour,Ali Dalir Ghaffari,Shahrzad Soltani,Masoud Foroutan,Sanaz Tavakoli,Milad Badri,Hamidreza Majidiani,Mohamad Sabaghan,Sheyda Soltani

doi:10.1155/2021/9974509

Abstract

Apicomplexan parasites, including Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii), express different types of calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPKs), which perform a variety of functions, including attacking and exiting the host cells. In the current bioinformatics study, we have used several web servers to predict the basic features and specifications of the CDPK7 protein. The findings showed that CDPK7 protein has 2133 amino acid residues with an average molecular weight (MW) of 219085.79 D. The aliphatic index with 68.78 and grand average of hydropathicity (GRAVY) with -0.331 score were estimated. The outcomes of current research showed that the CDPK7 protein included 502 alpha-helix, 1311 random coils, and 320 extended strands with GOR4 method. Considering the Ramachandran plot, the favored region contains more than 92% of the amino acid residues. In addition, evaluation of antigenicity and allergenicity showed that CDPK7 protein has immunogenic and nonallergenic nature. The present research provides key data for more animal-model study on the CDPK7 protein to design an efficient vaccine against toxoplasmosis in the future.

Highlights

Toxoplasma gondii is a prevalent intracellular protozoan, which can infect a broad spectrum of mammals and birds [1, 2]
The amino acid structure of CDPK7 was obtained from the ToxoDB server with accession no
Based on the ProtParam database, the CDPK7 protein entails of 2133 amino acid residues with molecular weight of 219085.79 D, whereas theoretical pI was 5.79

Summary

Introduction

Toxoplasma gondii is a prevalent intracellular protozoan, which can infect a broad spectrum of mammals (i.e., human) and birds [1, 2]. T. gondii is transferred by water/vegetables contaminated via mature oocysts and consumption of raw or semicooked meat from infected animals, vertical transmission from infected pregnant mothers to neonates, and blood transfusion [4,5,6,7]. Often T. gondii infection among immunocompetent people is asymptomatic or demonstrates mild symptoms, whereas in immunocompromised patients, it can cause a various range of clinical symptoms [6, 9, 10]. Toxoplasmosis in pregnant women can cause blindness, microcephaly, and mental retardation in the infant [6, 12].

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Conclusion